A Prayer Before Dawn

Based on a true story, A Prayer Before Dawn follows Billy Moore, a young English boxer who ends up in a Thai prison notorious for its brutal conditions. Surrounded by drug use and gang violence, he struggles to survive in an environment far harsher than anything he has faced before. Having boxed since childhood, he turns to Muay Thai, the Thai national sport, when the prison authorities allow him to compete in tournaments. The ring becomes his route toward something like a way out, though the film keeps the outcome of that struggle out of reach.

Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire directed, working from a screenplay by Nick Saltrese and Jonathan Hirschbein, with Sauvaire also producing alongside Sol Papadopoulos and Nicholas Simon. The film was a co-production involving the United Kingdom, Cambodia, China, the United States and France, and it runs 116 minutes. Joe Cole plays Billy Moore, with Vithaya Pansringarm as Officer Preecha, Pornchanok Mabklang as Fame, Somrak Khamsing as Suthin, Nic Shake as Doctor and Panya Yimmumphai as Keng among a credited cast of 56. It was Sauvaire's first feature before Asphalt City in 2024.

The film drew a critics' rating of 7.6/10 from 64 reviews, noticeably higher than its audience scores: 6.8/10 on IMDb from around 29,000 votes and 6.7/10 on TMDB from 676 votes. That gap suggests reviewers responded more strongly to the film's approach than general viewers did.